Feature Service

Technology is helping public sector banks find customers in rural India. This is part of the Centre's efforts to include villages in the organised financial system; to ensure they are not cheated of their wages. Pilots show promise

A website helps people observe and understand nature while gathering scientific data

by Sumana Narayanan

If there is a neem or jamun tree in your backyard, check it regularly and note down when they flower and fruit. You may soon realise you are collecting data for scientific research.

The National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), a research body in Bengaluru, plans to rope in people for creating an online database on the lifecycle of various plant species across the country and on the influence of climate change on them.

Government offers Rs 25,000 each to 109 BPL families to relocate; villagers turn down the offer

by Ashutosh Mishra, Khurda

Pabani Pradhan, 42, looks 60. She can’t walk on her own. Joginath Pradhan, 60, Pabani’s neighbour, uses crutches. Sukant, 24, the sole breadwinner of a family of six, cannot move out of the village to fit tiles in people’s houses any more because his body has become stiff. Fluorosis has crippled them, and other residents of Balsingh-Singpur in Khurda district of Orissa.

Vedanta gets tracts of thorium rich land along the Orissa coast for a university. Allegations fly

by Ruhi Kandhari

Mining giant Vedanta’s proposed university in Orissa will not only be one of the few in the world with an outlay of Rs 15,000 crore and spread across 2,400 hectares, it will also sit on land rich in thorium deposits.

A month ago I found myself dodging traffic in one of Chennai’s older areas, Mylapore. I was on an errand to buy a herbal medicine for a cousin. The shop I was looking for is well-known but hard to locate.

Spiralling prices of pulses have shown India’s dependence on imports. Pulses are integral to India’s diet but not its food policy. As a result, supply cannot meet demand. What are the consequences and solutions?

Except 2008, the Keoladeo national park in Rajasthan has been receiving little or no water for the past six years. A seasonal breach of a dam upstream was the source of the water till 2003, the year the breach was repaired. Nobody at the time thought of the repercussions on the park.